Hawaii continues to lead the nation in the percent of millionaires per overall population. Phoenix Marketing International of New York defines a millionaire household as one with $1 million or more in investable or liquid assets, excluding sponsored retirement plans and real estate. The marketing firm announced Friday the number of millionaires in the U.S. has declined by 14 percent over the past two years. But 6.4 percent of Hawaii’s households, or 28,363, are millionaires. That’s down from 7.26 percent in 2008 but still high enough of a percentage to lead the nation for the second year in a row....

Three victims of convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff are seeking damages in the millions claiming they were cheated and strong-armed into accepting less compensation than they say they're owed and also accuses the SIPC (provides fraud insurance for investors), of cheating some victims. Madoff trustee Irving Picard is accused of breach of fiduciary duty for failing to make payments under SIPC rules. Picard sought to claw back money withdrawn then revealed SIPC should payout based upon original investments rather than account balances at the time the fraud was uncovered. SIPC is bound by law to payout up to a maximum of...

GOP Briefing Room Exclusive Content Why the Rich Will Get Richer Under Obama By Victor J. Massad Victor J, Massad, Ph.D. is a semi-retired professor of marketing & business at a Pennsylvania college. The Google search “spread the wealth around” yields 221 thousand results, nearly all of which discuss then-candidate Barack Obama’s most candid moment in the 2009 presidential election campaign. What Obama said was this: "It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too. When you spread the wealth...

... Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O'Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were "willing and able to pay their fair share." The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would "grin and bear it." One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the...

A female millionaire's public announcement to seek a life partner is becoming the talk of the town. It is rare in Korea for rich female singles to publicly seek a future husband through a match-making agency. The businesswoman has asked matchmaking company Sunwoo to find her future husband. The agency posted an open proposal on its website on May 21. According the agency, the businesswoman is 49 years old and is worth 20 billion won (about $16 million). The proposal starts with the headline "success in business, now looking to succeed in love! We are looking for a special man...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's personal finances appear to be on sound footing even as the nation's economy struggles, a financial report he released Friday shows. Obama and his wife Michelle have $1.4 million to $5.9 million in assets, not counting their Chicago home. Their holdings include up to $265,000 in checking accounts. The president's new financial disclosure report mirrors one he filed a few months ago. Much of the Obamas' wealth comes from the president's best-sellers. The books, "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope," brought in about $2.5 million in royalties last year, according to tax...

Here’s a sobering fact to ponder: Rush Limbaugh earns more per year than Jay Leno. Put another way, we as a nation have placed a higher value on fear than laughter. Regardless of the relative merits of either performer, Leno is paid less to crack jokes than Rush is to instill fear. One is positive, the other negative. What does this say about the state of our nation? An entire cottage industry has formed solely to track the utterances of Limbaugh, and there is little use in recanting his vile litany once again. Limbaugh has created a career out of...

Barack Obama's rich supporters fear his tax plans show he's a class warrior Some of Barack Obama's richest supporters fear they have elected a "class warrior" to the White House, who will turn America's freewheeling capitalism into a more regulated European system. By Leonard Doyle in Washington 09 May 2009 Barack Obama: some of his rich supporters fear he is becoming a class warrior Wealthy Wall Street financiers and other business figures provided crucial support for Mr Obama during the election, backing him over the Republican candidate John McCain as the right leader to rescue the collapsing US economy. But...

Obama bites rich hands that fed him By: Jeanne Cummings May 5, 2009 08:01 PM EST For a politician who sometimes got accused of playing class warfare, candidate Barack Obama sure made a lot of well-to-do friends during the 2008 campaign. The big question now is whether President Barack Obama can keep them. One striking, if little-noted, trend of the past presidential election was that Obama won the affluent vote — those making more than $200,000 annually — with 52 percent. Moving down the income scale a bit, he and John McCain essentially tied among those making between $100,000 and...

Michelle Obama has taken casual to a haute new level. While volunteering Wednesday at a D.C. food bank, the First Lady sported her usual J.Crew cardigan, a pair of utilitarian capri pants and, on her feet, a sneaky splurge: trainers that go for $540. That's right: These sneakers - suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and metallic pink toe caps - are made by French design house Lanvin, one of fashion's hottest labels. They come in denim and satin versions, and have been a brisk seller all spring. They're out of stock at posh Meatpacking District boutique Jeffrey, and Barneys...

NEW YORK: Michelle Obama left many admiring her 540-dollar fancy footwear as she recently stepped out to volunteer at a Washington D.C. food bank. The US First Lady was spotted sporting renowned French design house Lanvin's trendy trainers, suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and metallic pink toe caps. The mum-of-two, who has top labels in the line desperate to dress her in their wraps, completed the remaining look with her J.Crew cardigan and a pair of utilitarian capri pants, reports the New York Daily News. Michelle has sparked many shopping frenzies amongst women looking to ape her sense of clothing.

Who are the richest senators of the 110th congress? Names like Rockefeller and Clinton weren’t surprising but a few others were. What was a little surprising is the fact that the top 4 wealthiest senators are Democrats. And I thought the Republicans were the “rich, white guys”. We took the top 15 and listed their minimum and maximum net worth. We listed the Minimum Net Worth and a Maximum Net Worth because the disclosure forms that they are required to file don’t require exact amounts. 1 Herb Kohl (D-Wis) $219,098,029 $234,549,004 2 John Kerry (D-Mass) $165,741,511 $235,262,100 3 Jay Rockefeller...

Sunday, April 26, 2009 It Pays to Go Green! Al Gore's Net Worth Jumps From $2 Million in 2000 to $100 Million in 2008 Evidently, it pays to tell people that the Arctic is melting into slush. Al Gore told a German audience in December that the North Pole will disappear in 5 years: Chief climate change pimp Al Gore is making millions off of his fear-mongering. Pro Patria discovered that while Al Gore is scaring the daylights out of young children he is making millions from his green investments. So what has Al Gore gained from his Big Green...

Retailing wonder-woman Karen Katz was featured as a "magical thinker" in the Sept. 21, 2007, edition of Time magazine. The Neiman Marcus president and CEO said that the number of U.S. households worth more than $5 million was greater than ever before, and consumers had an increased appetite for all things luxe. "Many other retailers have jumped on the luxury bandwagon, wanting to get their piece of the action. It's forced us to say, 'Where do we go?' And we're kind of moving up," Katz told Time. "We've decided there's this category we've named 'high luxury.' It's even more luxurious,...

NEW YORK – Trustees of real estate baroness Leona Helmsley's estate say they're giving $136 million to charity — with just $1 million going to the dogs. Helmsley's estate announced 53 charitable grants Tuesday, the bulk of which went to New York City hospitals and medical research. The largest grant, $40 million, went to a digestive diseases center at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, while $35 million went to start two research facilities in Helmsley's name at Mount Sinai Medical Center. The estate for Helmsley — who died in 2007 at age 87 — divided $1 million equally to 10...

First couple paid $855,323 in federal taxes or 32 percent of their income: WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, millionaires from his best-selling books, made $2.7 million last year and paid just under one-third of their adjusted income in federal taxes. While the income, mostly his, was far more than the U.S. median household income of about $50,000, it was quite a decrease from the $4.2 million the Obamas made in 2007.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama is one taxpayer who filed his returns on time. Tax returns released by the White House show Obama and his wife, Michelle, together made $2.7 million last year. While that's far more than the U.S. median household income of about $50,000, it's also far less than the Obamas made the previous year. In 2007, they made $4.2 million.

Obamas pay more than $900,000 in taxes By Sam Youngman Posted: 04/15/09 05:18 PM [ET] The new first family paid more than $900,000 in federal and state taxes this year after President Obama's book sales last year earned him more than $2.6 million. In addition to paying more than $855,000 in federal taxes, the Obamas also paid more than $77,000 in state taxes in Illinois, according to the White House. Vice President Biden and his wife, Jill, reported paying $46,952 in federal taxes on "an adjusted gross income" of close to $270,000. The Bidens paid a little more than $11,000...

Recently released financial records paint a contrasting picture of the Obama administration: a cabinet composed largely of politicians and government employees who have been on the public payroll for years, and a White House staffed with numerous aides who received substantial compensation over the past year from firms that could have a big stake in administration policies... Well-paid White House staff include chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers. He earned about $5.2 million from hedge-fund firm D.E. Shaw & Co. in the past year, and received more than $2.7 million in speaking fees... Other White House staff members received generous payments...

CHICAGO, April 4 (UPI) -- U.S. presidential adviser David Axelrod received $2 million late last year when he sold his consulting firm, documents indicate. Axelrod pioneered many of the Internet organizing techniques that played a crucial role in propelling President Barack Obama to the White House. His firm, AKP&D Message & Media, which specialized in corporate public relations, was sold to two of his partners -- John Kupper and John Del Cecato -- and Los Angeles Obama campaign strategist Larry Grisolano, the Washington publication Politico reported Saturday. The disclosure form filed by Axelrod showed he earned $152,000 from his work...

Just as news breaks that political fundraising is down for both parties, Republicans have lost one of their more generous contributors. In what one might call a biblical move, Christian philanthropist Howard Ahmanson -- one of three major funders of the campaign for California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages -- has abandoned the GOP for the Democratic Party. No one ever said the multimillionaire isn't idiosyncratic. In a rare interview Thursday, Ahmanson shared some of his thoughts about why he switched parties. In a word, taxes. Specifically, he was offended by the California Republican Party's insistence during a recent...

See How the Top .001 % liveSpecial Monday PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Who are the New Super Rich? They are typically self-made, young and make their fortunes relatively quickly. The Super Rich are entrepreneurs, CEO’s, partners in hedge funds and private equity firms, and real estate developers. Current DateTime: 04:29:21 20 Mar 2009 LinksList Documentid: 24989338 * SLIDE SHOW: Inside the Life of Millionaire Tim Durham The New Gilded Age The New Gilded Age Largely through private equity and hedge funds, Wall Street has created wealth more quickly, dramatically, and controversially than ever before, fueling what’s been described as a “New Gilded...

NEW YORK – Bernard Madoff and his wife had $823 million in assets at the end of last year, including $22 million in properties stretching from New York to the French Riviera, a $7 million yacht and a $2.2 million boat named "Bull," according to a document his lawyers filed Friday. The document, prepared for the Securities and Exchange Commission at the end of last year, was contained in papers filed with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an effort to get Madoff freed on bail. Among the couple's assets: a $12 million half share in a plane,...

CNBC’s “NEWBOs: The Rise of the New Black Overclass” Will Premiere Thursday, February 26th at 9PM & 1AM ET on CNBC CNBC’s “NEWBOs: The Rise of America’s New Black Overclass,” is an original one-hour primetime documentary about the growing wave of young black multimillionaires coming out of the sports, media and entertainment industries. This project examines the rise of “Newbos,” — young black athletes, entertainers, and creative entrepreneurs – who, with the right amount of financial literacy, collaboration, intergenerational mentorship and social awareness, could have a profound, positive impact on black America. The special, hosted by Wall Street Journal reporter...

It's an American success story. Self-made black multimillionaires, many of whom grew up poor, have made vast fortunes in the sports, entertainment and media industries. The new moguls made their millions under the age of 40, primarily by taking more ownership and control over their brands than their predecessors. Collectively, black athletes in the NFL, NBA, and in Major League Baseball earned nearly $4 billion last year and the nation's 20 highest-paid hip-hop entrepreneurs brought in more than $500 million. Now, with their newfound wealth come responsibilities to their family, friends, and community. Based on Lee Hawkins' forthcoming book of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Merrill Lynch quietly paid out at least one million dollars bonus each to about 700 top executive even when the investment house was bleeding with losses last year, a probe has revealed. They were part of 3.6 billion dollars in the firm's bonus payments in December before the announcement of its fourth quarterly losses and takeover by Bank of America, the investigation by the New York state Attorney General's office showed. "696 individuals received bonuses of one million dollars or more," New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said of the Merrill scandal in a letter to a...

For the wealthy, Tuesday’s inauguration is the dream party: a chance to rub elbows with the similarly rich and powerful, to become part of a historic moment, and (most importantly), to get access to the man of the moment. It also is a chance to drown their financial sorrows in an emotional wave of optimism. Yet it may come as a surprise that at a time of financial crisis and Green correctness, many of the wealthy are choosing to arrive by private jet. According to an article in Bloomberg, as many as 600 private jets were expected to touch down...

Former Sen. Mark Dayton has filed papers to run for governor in 2010. The Democrat on Friday said he won't make a formal public announcement about his campaign until spring. For now, Dayton has registered with the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. Dayton, a multimillionaire who self-funded his 2000 campaign for the Senate, did not seek re-election in 2006. Others who have filed with the board are Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, state Sen. Tom Bakk (bock), state Rep. Paul Thissen (TEE'-sen), state Sen. John Marty and frequent candidate Ole Savior. Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said he will...

BOCA RATON — In the early 1980s, ophthalmologist Gerald Blumenthal thought he had found a safe, reliable place to park his firm's pension plan: investments managed by Bernard Madoff. The returns were steady and reliable. Blumenthal was pleased. So his children invested. As they became adults and married, their in-laws invested. Friends invested. Blumenthal even had his grandchildren's money invested. All told, 35 to 40 people in Blumenthal's circle of friends and family invested $30 million with Madoff. But in December, Blumenthal, 78, and his wife received the shock of their lives: All the money, including their life savings of...

Michael Bienes, the fabulously wealthy Fort Lauderdale benefactor, abruptly resigned from the Performing Arts Center Authority board Wednesday with a one-sentence letter, according to a center spokeswoman. "We received the letter yesterday which said he was resigning, effective immediately," said Broward Center of The Arts spokeswoman Jan Goodheart. There's very clearly trouble in paradise -- and rumors are swirling among the county's elite that Bienes, who has poured more than $30 million into various Broward County causes and has his name emblazoned on the Broward County Library and Holy Cross Hospital, is dropping out of public life altogether. His leaving...

TINA DAUNT Money flows freely for Barack Obama's inauguration bash The election may be over, but the Hollywood ATM is still kicking out the cash. And if all goes as planned, the entertainment industry money will help put on an inaugural bash like never before. According to records posted on the Internet by President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, the inaugural committee is raking in the cash through private donations to help fund items such as fireworks and American flags for what's shaping up as the Biggest Show on Earth. Bigger than the Golden Globes, "American Idol" and, gasp, the Academy...

Look what taxpayers' Wall Street rescue helped buy one former honcho! Peter Kraus - a former top executive at Merrill Lynch who received a $25 million golden parachute after only three months' work - has landed himself a $37 million Park Avenue pad.

NEW YORK — At this time last year, Caroline Kennedy was promoting A Family Christmas, a collection of essays that featured the memory of her father letting her use the White House switchboard to call Santa. This year, after warily stepping into the political free-for-all for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, Ms. Kennedy's activities during the holiday season included fending off requests to disclose financial information.

Caroline Kennedy will feel right at home in the Millionaires' Club known as the U.S. Senate: The Camelot heiress' net worth easily tops $100 million, a Daily News review found. The former First Daughter is refusing to release financial information as she seeks to become New York's next senator, maintaining her family dynasty's longstanding practice of keeping its fortune tightly under wraps.

Caroline Kennedy will feel right at home in the Millionaires' Club known as the U.S. Senate: The Camelot heiress' net worth easily tops $100 million, a Daily News review found. The former First Daughter is refusing to release financial information as she seeks to become New York's next senator, maintaining her family dynasty's longstanding practice of keeping its fortune tightly under wraps. Public records paint a portrait of an enormously wealthy 51-year-old woman, whose dad, 35th President John F. Kennedy, is featured on the half-dollar coin. Her crown jewel appears to be the 366-acre ocean-side estate on Martha's Vineyard passed...

ASPEN, Colo. (Fortune) -- Palm Beach and New York may have been hardest hit by the Bernard Madoff scandal, but residents in Aspen, Colo., are quietly tallying up massive losses. The upscale resort community has a population base of under 6,000, but reports over the past week reveal that dozens of residents have been undone by the $50 billion Ponzi scheme allegedly perpetrated by Madoff. According to local asset managers and lawyers, these families have lost upwards of $1 billion. Some have seen up to 95% of their life savings disappear in the past few days -- both long-time locals...

Robert and Ellen Jaffe, the Boston and Palm Beach socialites embroiled in Bernard L. Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme, yesterday stepped down as cochairs of the upcoming gala the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute holds every year in the wealthy Florida enclave. Robert Jaffe, 64, served as vice president of Cohmad Securities Corp., which funneled clients to Madoff's investment fund. "Given the demands of their family, the Jaffes stepped down as cochairs" of the Discovery Ball, said Bill Schaller, a spokesman for Dana-Farber. One of the biggest society functions of the year, the gala is scheduled for Feb. 21 at The...

PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH DUCKS THE FOURTH ESTATE'S shoes as effortlessly as he evades its questions. I was properly impressed with his quick reflexes; after viewing the shoe-throwing incident over and over on YouTube, I concluded that Dubya was a practiced dodger, and that Dick Cheney and Condi Rice must be engaging him in lunch-hour food fights. Hoop-shooting President Elect Barack Obama similarly is agile. He and his administration-in-waiting are highly adept at side-stepping serious questions from the press. You've seen this most recently with his evasive response to questions about his transition team's contacts with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a...

Beyond the financial fallouts in Palm Beach of the Bernie Madoff scandal, the very social fabric of The Island may find itself altered forever. Formerly rich families will be uprooted. Former friends are at each other’s throats. While Realtors are lining up to grab the expected sales of mansions whose owners lost the millions they invested with the disgraced Wall Street big, one scene at Mar-a-Lago Saturday night illustrates the tension. Several eyewitnesses at the 60th birthday party for carpet king John Stark tell me that two of the major players in this scandal came face-to-face. It wasn’t pleasant. On...

Bernie Madoff's Victims (So Far) HSBC "has emerged as one the largest victims of Bernard Madoff’s alleged fraud with potential exposure of about $1bn to the investment manager’s collapsed venture...HSBC’s exposure stemmed from loans it provided to institutional clients, mainly hedge funds of funds, that wanted to invest with Mr Madoff. HSBC’s direct exposure is believed to be about $1bn in loans provided to clients who invested some $500m of their own funds in Mr Madoff’s venture. Under the typical terms of these deals, if the US authorities recover any funds from Mr Madoff, HSBC will be paid first, with...

ABC News' Joel Siegel reports: The scope of Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme is becoming clearer, and it's enormous. Newspapers and Web sites from around the world today are filled with stories about new victims. In South Korea, institutional investors may have lost $100 million. French bank BNP Paribas, Tokyo-based Nomura Holdings and Zurich's Neue Privat Bank also suffered losses. Spanish newspapers reported that a fund run by leading bank Santander was heavily exposed and that investors in Spain risk losing about $3 billion. And Swiss bankers face losses of up to $5 billion. Among the boldface names who...

Barack Obama promised he would lower taxes for 95 percent of Americans and presumably raise them for the 5 percent who benefited most under President Bush’s tax policies. But, remarkably, the most affluent 5 percent supported Obama and that was perhaps the key to his victory last week.

Barack Obama inauguration tickets touted for $40,000 US President-elect Barack Obama The 95,000 hotel rooms in Washington are already close to sold out Tim Reid in Washington There is one booming sector of the US economy into which colossal sums of cash are still being injected: the sale of tickets and hotel rooms for Barack Obama's inauguration. The excitement over the January 20 swearing in of America's first African American president is at such fever pitch that tickets for the ceremony - which are distributed for free - are already being touted on the internet for as much as $40,000...

This article [h/t Instapundit] shows that the U.S. has a more progressive tax code than the democratic-socialist states of Europe. Such a state of affairs should not come as a surprise. Our own history shows that the very wealthy benefit from leftist policies of high tax rates, “targeted” taxation and industrial policy. The ugly truth is that the really wealthy can manipulate the political system to their own ends better than ordinary people. They can lobby for specific tax breaks that only they can take advantage of. They can get government trade protection for their companies. They can get bailouts....

For several years, I've been writing about Bushenfreude, the phenomenon of angry yuppies—who've hugely benefited from President Bush's tax cuts—funding angry, populist Democratic campaigns. I've theorized that people who work in financial services and related fields have become so outraged and alienated by the incompetence, crass social conservatism, and repeated insults to the nation's intelligence, of the Bush-era Republican Party, that they're voting with their hearts and heads instead of their wallets. Last week's election was perhaps Bushenfreude's grandest day. As the campaign entered its final weeks, Barack Obama, who pledged to unite the country, singled out one group of...

For several years, I've been writing about Bushenfreude, the phenomenon of angry yuppies—who've hugely benefited from President Bush's tax cuts—funding angry, populist Democratic campaigns. I've theorized that people who work in financial services and related fields have become so outraged and alienated by the incompetence, crass social conservatism, and repeated insults to the nation's intelligence, of the Bush-era Republican Party, that they're voting with their hearts and heads instead of their wallets. Last week's election was perhaps Bushenfreude's grandest day. As the campaign entered its final weeks, Barack Obama, who pledged to unite the country, singled out one group of...

November 9, 2008 Not everyone is waiting eagerly to hear the details of President-elect Obama's economic stimulus package. Upper-income individuals are seeking shelter from what are likely to be hefty tax increases. Many financial advisors are urging haste -- suggesting their clients make tax-saving moves before the year end, according to Michael Gray, CPA. “The details of tax changes will be negotiated by Congress next year,” says Gray. “According to a summary by the Tax Policy Center, Obama has proposed to restore the 39.6% maximum bracket in 2009 that we had under Clinton for single taxpayers with income exceeding $200,000...